When the House of Representatives convened for its Morning Hour on March 21, 2017, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, took to the floor to urge House members to support H.R. 1227, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act. If passed, the bill would remove marijuana from the federal controlled substances list, decriminalizing it federally.

“I’m rising today to urge my colleagues to support H.R.1227, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act, which I’ve introduced with my Republican colleague, a fellow Army veteran and former prosecutor from the State of Virginia, Congressman Tom Garrett, where we are seeking to address our outdated and widely problematic marijuana laws by federally decriminalizing marijuana,” Gabbard said in her opening remarks.

“Our current laws are turning everyday Americans into criminals, sending them to jail, ruining their lives, tearing apart families and wasting huge amounts of taxpayer dollars to arrest, prosecute and incarcerate people for marijuana use — a drug that has been proven time and time again to be far less dangerous than alcohol, both for individual consumers as well as for the people around them,” Gabbard explained.

“We need to take into account the growing body of evidence that suggests the medicinal benefits of marijuana, including preventing epileptic seizures, reducing anxiety, and even halting the growth of cancer cells,” Gabbard added.

According to Brian Goldstein, Founder and CEO of Manoa Botanicals, a licensed medical marijuana dispensary in Hawaii, “Descheduling cannabis will benefit Hawaii patients by allowing for more rapid research to identify the best medical marijuana strains and dosages for individual medical conditions.”

You can watch Gabbard’s full speech to the House of Representatives below.

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